Out of the Woods

 Out of the Woods

Reviewed By  Nan van Dissel       April 13, 2025

 

Author  Gretchen Shirm

Distributor:      Transit Lounge
ISBN:                 9781923023314
Publisher:         Transit Lounge
Release Date:   April 2025  

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‘Out of the Woods’ set in 2000, by highly regarded author Gretchen Shirm, takes the reader back to a terrible time in the history of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina; the trail of a former military man, charged with war crimes during the Genocide that occurred in the small mountain town Srebrenica in July 1995.

Jess, a middle-aged Australian woman, while working as the secretary to an Australian judge during this trail of “K”, not only explores The Hague, and other Dutch cities in The Netherlands, but also her life as a child, mother and now as single divorced woman.

As Jess sits through the evidence of mostly women, who have lost husbands, brothers and other family members, relating the horrors of the genocide, she has difficulty in associating them with the defendant in the dock.

As a result of her friendship with Merjen, one of the women, who has suffered unbearable loss and who had given testimony at the trial, Jess’s compassion for the people of Srebrenica is complete. 

As Jess’s knowledge and understanding of the extent of this Genocide grows, so does that of the readers, who will be continually asking themselves ‘How could this have been allowed to happen?’ They will be moved by the extracts of recorded testimonies, which have been placed at the beginning of each chapter.

Readers will not be able to leave what they have read of this terrible event behind. This thought provoking novel will no doubt give them greater compassion for those who have endured suffering.

Fiction, General, Historical